She moved closer to me and her eyes got intense before she kept talking.

“You are beautiful. You are so sweet, damn, honey, too sweet. I love that about you. Everyone loves that about you. You’re forty-three years old, you had a rotten marriage to the king of all assholes who’s finally proven he’s truly the king of all assholes, and you’re still naïve and innocent and that’s cute. It is. Trust me. Guys think so too. But that makes you a mark for players out there and you’ve managed to steer clear because life scares the fuckin’ beejeezus out of you and now when you take the leap it’s with someone who is not good for you. Someone who any woman who’s not got her head in the sand would take one look at, know was fun to play with, and then move the fuck on.”

She shook her head and her hand on my arm gave me a squeeze.

“Not you. You have visions of white picket fences and making him extravagant birthday cakes until he dies. He started this shit with you as his mark and I know why he’s back, because you’re naïve and innocent and he thinks it’s cute. But he’s going to chew you up, Tess. Chew you up and spit you out. He already has, and girl, my sweet girl, you gotta pull your head outta the sand and see him for what he is and that he’s gonna do it again.”

“Mm-hmm,” Elvira muttered.

I turned my eyes to her.

Then I said what I knew to this group would sound stupid. “You all don’t know him.”

“Uh… sorry to say, but we do,” Gwen said quietly and I turned surprised eyes to her.

“You do?” I asked.

“Well I do. It was a while ago but… uh…” She looked at Elvira then back at me. “He was… my man is in the business and there was a situation where I got involved and Lucas was also involved. He was undercover then too and…” She paused, pulled in a soft breath and finished softly. “Sorry, Tess, he was also with a girl during that operation. Her name was Darla and she was a skank, total skank, total bad-news skank, but he was pretending to be with her while actually being with her in order to take down the bad guy. It’s cool he’s committed to his job. But Brock Lucas is known by all to be seriously committed to his job.”

I stared at her and I knew what she was saying.

I knew exactly what she was saying.

That thing tight in my belly started unfurling again, hissing, bearing its fangs, preparing to strike.

Damn.

I had to get out of there and get it under control before it choked me, or worse, poisoned me.